It’s a close run thing, but I think the radio station here wins the prize for being the biggest brain-dead morons, closely followed by the competing listeners.
To summerise: Radio station thinks a good competion to win the “coolest seats” at a music festival would be see who could sit on a block of ice (“cool”, gettit?) the longest.
At work I won $5 for keeping my hand in a bucket of cold water for two minutes.
Little did those rubes know that I ran cross-country in college, had bad shins, and thus would regularly spend 15 minutes at a time with the entire lower half of my body submerged in an icy cold whirlpool.
Next week I’m drinking liquid nitrogen. Little do those rubes know I breathe that shit all the time. Teehee!
The story I read claims that the cold was so intense it numbed their nerves and they didn’t realise just how much damage was being done. If that’s true I don’t think you can really blame them.
The company involved claims that it was based on a successful stunt in New Zealand. Unfortunately they managed to use dry ice instead of normal ice.
Bunch of cretins. I hope they get sued something rotten.
Yes indeedy. Whoever dreams up the stunts at that station needs to be fired. Or iced. Seriously, this sort of stupidity makes breeding licenses look GOOD.
Except they’re dealing with something that is gaseous in normal conditions and exists as a solid in temperatures well below that which people get frostbite. The point where your nerves are numbed beyond feeling is when to start worrying.
The ones most to blame, I reckon, are those who supplied the dry ice. Surely someone involved had received training on how to handle the stuff? Did no-one think to mention this idiotic stunt was dangerous?
This reminds me of something that happened several years back at a high school pep rally in Silverton, OR. Girls from each class had to see who could sit on blocks of ice the longest and, unfortunately, it turned out to be dry ice. It’s appalling that the teachers, coaches, whoever is supposed to supervise these things was so ignorant. I sure hope none of them were science teachers!
I seem to remember, too, that some people thought that the bigger shame of the situation was how the news media treated it as a humorous story because the girls got cold bottoms (tee hee). Those cold bottoms needed skin grafts. It wasn’t a laughing matter.
The logic that he who manufactures or supplies a thing is responsible for the eventual use no matter how convoluted or divergent from it’s original purpose falls into the tripe pot that embraces tobacco lawsuits, the McFatass litigation, and damage filings against gun manufacturers.
I’m waiting about 10-15 years for the class action of all the deaf or hearing damaged young adults against Pioneer, Alpine, and Bose because their 150 dB rolling thumpa-boxes caused hearing damage.
Was there a warning label on the box stating that listening to music at painful volume could be dangerous?
Sticking your ass on anything that’s ~ -78° C is maybe, just maybe a bad idea.
And while it wouldn’t be the responsibility of the dry ice suppliers, it would behoove them to mention that the two groups of morons are about to make a Big Fucking Mistake. Not so much as any liability issue, but just common sense. A good, old-fashioned “What the hell is wrong with you schmucks?!” y’know?
But when the guy turned up with a large block of dry ice and was asked to put it outside, exposed, in the middle of a gathering crowd, it never occured to ask what was going on?
"We’re going to have people sit on it for as long as they can stand. "
“Uh, ok. No business of mine that this is just the kind of stupidity my on-the-job training advises against and is going to end up with people in hospital.”
Ulitimately, I believe, the responsibility lies with the radio station. But there must have been a supplier about, you don’t keep a stock of dry ice in the stationary cupboard. They must have known the dangers, so why not warn them?
FYI, this is the same radio station that, a couple of years ago, organised a ‘blind wedding’ where the two contestants wouldn’t meet each other until their marriage ceremony. Caused an uproar and got the radio station loads of publicity…
Who is going to listen to a guy whose job is lugging around chunks of ice? Seriously. I have seen things just as stupid, when people did get a warning, but being stupid people they went along as if they were thinking: “That’s not what I want to hear, so you must be wrong.”
They don’t actually say that, they say something more like “oh, I’m sure the organizers did their research. They know enough not to subject our fans to anything dangerous.” (I mean really, the guys who thought up this contest went to college, and you just drive a truck full of ice around.)
If you’re a minority voice and you’re giving them “bad news” they’ll find a way to figure that you’re wrong or that your information doesn’t apply in this particular case.
The dry ice could have been wrapped up with warning stickers plastered over it, and some putz still may have thought, “well, that doesn’t really apply. All these people are wearing pants, so it’s not like they’re touching it with bare skin…”
I would, if I were smart enough to know what dry ice was. I would assume that the folks to transport stuff like that go through at least a most basic safety course, which at the very least would tell you “Don’t fucking sit on it!” But I guess I shouldn’t assume anything about the participants’ supposed intelligence.
Well, I think you’ve just hit the nail on the head, there. Whoever ordered the dry ice is clearly not smart enough to know what it is, making them all the more prone to ignoring warnings.